Wednesday, October 19, 2005

In a previous post I mentioned Atremis of Ephesus, a Greek goddess who, at Ephesus, in Turkey, was worshipped more as a fertility goddess than we generally associate with Artemis. Her temple was one of the Ancient Wonders of the World. Today she is a very important pagan figure.

As you may have noticed, she is sometimes represented with rows and rows of breasts - again as a fertility symbol. "Third Nipple" seems a little inadequate for her.

2 comments:

One thing that is very noticeable if you see a closeup of the statue is that tehre are no nipples on the so-called breasts. Some researchers theorise that the blobs represent sacrificed bull testicles -not joking.

This Artemis is not the virgin huntress of Greek myth. She is a local fertility goddess, festooned with swathes of pendulous objects variously interpreted as breasts, eggs or even, it has been argued, testicles (the chief priest of Ephesus is always a eunuch). The temple of Artemis is destroyed by Goths in AD 262.

More info on this temple and another good photo of the statue are here.